“I cannot accept it from you,” said old Mrs. Murray, who was the grandmother of both. She spoke with a little vehemence, with a glimmering of tears in the worn old eyes, which were still so bright and full of vital force. She was recovering from an illness, and thus the tears came more easily than usual. “Of all that call kin with me, Edgar, my bonnie lad, you are the last that should sacrifice your living to keep up my auld and weary life. I canna do it. It’s pride, nothing but pride, that makes me loth to go away--loth, loth to eat other folk’s bread. But wherefore should I be proud? What should an old woman like me desire better than a chair at my ain daughter’s chimney-corner, and a share of what she has, poor woman? I say to myself it’s her man’s bread I will eat, and no hers; but Robert Campbell will be kind--enough. He’ll no grudge me my morsel. When a woman has been a man’s faithful wife for thirty years, surely, surely she has a right to the gear she has helped to make. And I’ll no be that useless when I’m weel; there’s many a thing about a house that an old woman can do. Na, na, it’s nothing but pride.” * * * * * “And what if I had my pride too?” he asked. “My dear old mother, it goes against me to think of you as anywhere but at Loch Arroch. Mr. Campbell is an excellent man, I have no doubt, and kind--enough, as you say; and his wife very good and excellent--” “You might say your aunt, Edgar,” said the old lady, with a half-reproach. He winced, though almost imperceptibly. “Well,” he said with a smile, “my aunt, if you prefer it. One thing I don’t like about you proud people is, that you never make allowance for other people’s pride. Mine demands that my old mother should be independent in her own old house; that she should have her pet companion with her to nurse her and care for her.” Here he laid his hand kindly, with a light momentary touch, upon the girl’s shoulder, who looked up at him with wistful tender eyes. “That she should keep her old servants, and continue to be the noble old lady she is--” “Na, na, Edgar; no lady. You must not use such a word to me. No, my bonnie man; you must not deceive yourself. It’s hard, hard upon you, and God forgive me for all I have done to make my good lad unhappy! We are decent folk, Edgar, from father to son, from mother to daughter; but I’m no a lady; an old country wife, nothing more--though you are a gentleman.” “We will not dispute about words,” said Edgar, with a shrug of his shoulders. “What would become of Jeanie, grandmother, if you went to your daughter, as you say?” “Ah!” cried the old woman, pausing suddenly, and raising both her hands to her face, “that’s what I canna bear--I canna bear it! Though I must,” she added hurriedly, drying her eyes, “if it’s God’s will.” “I would go to my uncle in Glasgow,” said Jeanie; “he’s not an ill man. They would take me in if I was destitute; that’s what they aye said.”